Governmental regulations have placed ever increasing restrictions on the amounts and types of organic volatiles permitted to escape into the atmosphere from coating compositions. Considerable efforts have been expanded to develop coatings compositions having a minimal amount of volatile organic components and this has led to the development of powder coatings, radiation-curable coatings, and water-borne coatings. High solids coatings represent another attractive technology to reduce solvent emissions. In these recent developments, the amounts of organic solvents present are minimal and consquently there is little or no atmospheric pollution.
A compound often used in the production of coating and ink formulations is 2,2-dimethyl-3-hydroxypropyl 2,2-dimethyl-3-hydroxypropionate (also known as ED-204). However, the normally solid nature of ED-204 and other ester diols has on occasion presented some problems in use. It has been recently discovered that ester diols can be reacted with alkylene oxides to form liquid vehicles which, depending upon the particular alkylene oxide selected, can be either water soluble or water insoluble; these have been called ester diol alkoxylates. Any further discoveries that would also serve to lower atmospheric pollution would be of interest for use in industry.